Saturday, December 20, 2014

Luxury means something different to different people. To inmates in the
Antwerp jail it are poetry books in a language the prisoners can read as City Poet Laureate Stijn Vrancken found out when the he looked into what
category of books were most borrowed from the jail's library. And yes, to his astonishment,
it was poetry. So Stijn asked his fellow poets, writers and readers to
bring their books to the 'Letteren huis' (House of letters) in as many
languages as we had. I brought a stack consisting of Dutch, French,
Cornish, German, English and Italian. Walking through the city with my the emptied caddy, I came upon a magnificent place, totally in period, tastefully restaurated. I asked whether I might take some pictures... I was, as I often do, wearing black. So the owner of the shop explained I shouldn't wear black, that doing so is cheap. One should only wear silk and real cashmere and color, and pattern... In other words to buy stunning clothing one can wear but few times on social occasions because otherwise people would say: Oh, there she is with that gorgeous dress, again and again... He then showed me some mindbogglingly beautiful dresses, one with a coat lined in the same silk pattern as the dress itself. I said: I obviously could never afford that lifestyle. His answer surprised me: I should find a sponsor... I can't figure out what he really means. Was he seeing Elisa Doolittle whom he could turn into a lady? Was he suggesting I should invest in one such dress and find a lover with good taste and money to burn?

So I have been wondering what my personal luxury would be: A pretty colorful, aging hippie hoody? Or is it rather being in the warm company of interesting people even if they are penniless, impecunious and without funds, had to flee their country for speaking out, for being at risk because of poems they wrote. My luxury is knowing, Tade, Déo and Hazim, and reading their work... Knowing Rollean and his always nonviolent stand for justice and peace.

May they all be safe. To them safety is luxury.

To me luxury is being with four people in a room and each one is from a different continent...

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Having moved in the same circles when young, the setting full of street musicians, painters and poets our lives took different paths. Bieke Stengos emigrated to Canada, studied some more and has a magnificent daughter. What is the same in our lives is that we both write. She just has a book out published by Vocamus Press, her second book of poetry. Her inspiration is the land, the landscape, the changing season. her poetry is filled with the strange beauty of melancholy. She came back to Belgium for a brief time and thus salon 12b invited her and the other poets present for a reading: Lucienne Stassaerts, who read impressive poems from work in progress: Souvenirs part II, Frank De Vos, Silent Bear, myself.

One poem by Bieke:

XIV

When I dream you into beingI find myself lost in a fog-invaded forestOf glimmering naked treesThat risefrom the blue-white snowcold like your bodyBefore heat devoured it

I search for a place to breathe freelyBut I get lostIn the press of your lipsAgainst the stretched skin of timeAnd the memory of you fadingLike a melting negativeOf a city with no sunWhere streets run dead into low walls

When I open my eyesTo a black line of upright treesI vanish from sight*Translation nto Dutch for whom needs it:XIV

Monday, December 15, 2014

Last night with a friend, in my festively lit town, we enjoyed a nice sashimi dinner: excellent raw fish, healthy and delicious. After green tea ice cream and white sesame ice cream, we saw in my preferred movie theater 'Cartoons' the movie Coming home. The story about love, guilt and grace is set in China. The father was a dissident and ended up for 30 years in jail. The daughter grew up under the so called "Cultural Revolution". She is a great and ambitious dancer and will do anything to secure the lead role, even betraying her father. The mother is a professor, loving and missing her husband. Finally a date is set for his return and then the movie turns into the sadness of dementia. She doesn't recognize her husband and for the betrayal by her daughter, she has chased her off. The husband, an intelligent, kind and compassionate man, comes up with ways to try and make his wife recognize him, which happens just one fleeting moment. He reads the letters he wrote but could send from jail to her... So he becomes the 'letter reader', he tunes the piano and he is the piano tuner. The daughter confesses it was her who betrayed him... He said I knew. It is all right... He knew what the cultural revolution did to people. He finally writes a letter asking the mother to let her daughter stay with her again... so that she can take care of her. The father becomes an accepted presence in whatever role it is that day. It is a beautiful and sad movie. I shed a few tears for my mother who passed away in February with dementia.

So with the beauty and understanding coming from art, I try to live my life to the fullest. I wish you all a beautiful end of year season.... May it be Hanukkah, Christmas, or a family fest... May there be peace, food, health and beauty for all.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Poetry has been an important factor in my life. I always read a lot, beginning with stories three book a week from the local library. When I had read everything in my age group for girls, the librarian refused to give me boys books or books above my age. I was devastated. Undaunted I roamed my mothers library, most were in Signet Pocketbooks, in English, whereas I had learned to read and write in Dutch. I felt hungry, actually starved all the time. I had Cinderella, a Disney book, the now politically incorrect, Little Black Sambo and a German book "Struwels Peter, an educational book with examples of what not to do... I was looking and looking for something else. I kept a slim notebook with quotes I came about or an occasional poem. I remember the first quote I noted was: No man is an island. "Man" then
already meaning human to me and thus including my young self. And then one day at secondary school, there it was, a dark poem, I did not understand by the Dutch poet Hendrik Marsman:

As I said, I didn't understand the poem, yet I knew it was important to me, that it was a turning point. I had no idea Marsman had taken Kiriloff, Kiriloff in de Daemonen from Dostojevsky... Had never heard from Dostojevksy... And then I came upon this poem by the same poet:

And that was the start of reading poetry, of writing poetry and translating poetry, and finally to the incredible Modern American Poetry course by Al Filreis: I found the course in 2013, took it again in 2014, am doing the 'modpoPLUS' and intend to do also modpo15. It is all about reading and wondering, close reading and wondering more deeply... So did poetry start for me.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Maono means vision in Swahili. My daughter Maya and her partner Bram have worked very hard to make this project work during these three years. Maya being a futurist has developed road book with tasks all having to do with images of the future. Bram's pictures and films have contributed to the great visual aspect of the project.
The three closing days at the VUB Salle Nelson Mandela where very intense. Two students held incredible speeches about how thinking about the future and having the exchange with the local students and artists had changed them forever thanks to Maya and Bram.Here you find a short video with an overview.
The following day a walk through Brussels was organized with all the colonial and post colonial aspects highlighted. Interesting, even on a cold day. The buildings, the banks, the administrative centers, Matonge the African section of Brussels, we saw it all and had even a nice moambe with chicken and fried bananas and saki saki for lunch. The project took place in Lubumbashi, Katanga and also yielded literary results also as a comic strip and some paintings and lots of photographs holding a view of the future.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Gerard Mortier was the Belgian opera innovator. He passed away and the concert was to pay homage to his life and work.

The first violin and the director were great, very expressive. The choir had wonderful voices. I also admired Anne Cambier: with a reach of two octaves. The technique she has in singing is exceptional. People totally enjoyed the performances of the young orchestra and of the more seasoned voices. It was a great evening with neighbors and friends and lovers of music.

Friday, October 31, 2014

In a few days I'll be leaving to go back to my life on the other side of the ocean. It is always hard to leave friends behind. The kindness and generosity, the humanity, their wildness as Giant fans, their artistic flair... all that will be missed. Also the friends they invited to watch the movie Bagdad Café together after eating cornbread and corn chowder, a great salad and enough beer for a café in Antwerp. The chairman of all the groups, the lady who walks and walks with her dogs, the friends who have known me since 1991, my roaming friend and activist... I learned from all of you. I will practice gratitude for all you have so generously given me.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

My friends C&I and R and myself watched the the game last night. I am just learning the language and symbols of basebal, am still confused about certain actions, but have already my darlings in the Giant team. I am proud to know the bottom and top of an inning, I know the importance of the 7th game and I love Sandoval and of course the intensity of Bumgarner... I am even willing to wear a SF cap, even in Belgium... Penske, Panik These Guys are amazing... I know, I kwo I know still nothing about this sports but it has a hook in me.
Now I even understand Sheerman Alexie's poem:

The Game Between the Jews and
the Indians is Tied Going Into the Bottom of the Ninth Inning

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Walking to the post office to have my mail forwarded when I leave, I saw a yellowish snake crossing the street sporting a tiny rattler. The snake was about 60 cm long or two feet. I ran to the bar calling Dave, Dave there is a rattler crossing the street!

Dave is a cook, so he grabbed a big pan and hit the snake on the head. That however, funny as it looked, did not kill the snake who now got mad. I heard the tiny noise of the white rttle ending in black. Dave then grabbed a sizable rock, dropped in on the snake's head. Why? rattlesnakes are territorial, so you don't want one install itself in your backyard, or next door. Of course they are a useful member of the desert population eating mice and such. Their bite small as the snake may be, can be very dangerous. I don't know what kind of rattlesnake it was. It did not have a greenish hue, so maybe it only ad one type of poison rather than two like the Mojave greens who are really dangerous.. One poison will eat away the skin and the other swells the limb up that was bitten en can cause neurological damage I was told. Did I take a picture? No! Am I going back for a picture of a dead snake? No! And no! The head remains poisonous after the snake dies. The snake crawled into a yard of a house where nobody lives; So no one should get hurt by the young snake's premature demise. The heat of the asphalt must have drawn the cold blooded animal out of hiding Was it necessary that this happened? In what book? In whose rhyme and reason? The encounters with snake in the desert on a warm day will happen again and coincidences of meeting will occur at random, it is a possibility. Yes Emily Dickinson, we all live in possibility, always remembering to gather paradise. But paradise without a snake, what meaning would that have had for humanity? The shadows have stopped in the tree covering the shimmering air over the asphalt.

This happened just now -
Did it really happen? Is this part of a biography?
And then I saw a tarantula

Monday, October 20, 2014

The bluegrass festival off the route 66 near Kingman in the Stetson winery was delightful. With several people from Chloride present we enjoyed the atmosphere and the music. We started out at 10 am with gospels performed by the The Central Valley Boys. Peter Hicks on the violin was remarkable. They performed several songs in the traditional style as a sign of respect to Vern Williams. So we were treated with Oh Suzannah! and Bald knob Arkansas.
After this really fitting Sunday morning Gospel bonanza the Snap Jackson & the knock on wood players gave us a brilliant set. The banjos stirred up memories of Tony and Norris playing and the ballads made me think of Dave... Americana, Bluegrass, souls blends in to a fresh new sound. The musicians have fun on stage and so did the audience.
The last set we listened to was performed by The get down boys out of Los Angeles. The rhythms and their own songs are just excellent. I also appreciate that they support new movements in Bluegrass. The sound people are musicians in their own right and went up on stage at one point.... In this set the vocal harmonies were just stirring and moving. Also note the mountains in the background...

Selling items for good causes is always part of the festivities of Old Miner Day.The bake sale is impressive, the choice is incredible, rum cake, upside down pineapple cake, oatmeal cookies, peanut cookies, brownies, cinnamon cookies, law fat, splenda cake for diabetics, chocolate chip cookies for all of us. Of course women do a lot of work, hammering and decorating, you name it.Of course there is the parade with old cars, Shriners, the local
volunteer fire department and even the election was part of it. Local play actors dressed up for the occasion.

Friday, October 17, 2014

As an avid reader of Daily Writing Tips, I just discovered that when I named my small dog 'Doggy Dog' that I committed a hypocorisma, which is a diminutive and a pet name. It can also be a diminutive name or an altered name. I didn't call her 'bow-wow' though. Altering a name, or just addressing some one as 'dear' can be rather condescending if one doesn't really know the person. Small children and elders are often addressed with hypocorisma... which can be insulting or infantilising... depending on the situation. So normal speech is more respectful, it avoids the dumbing down of the person spoken to.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

The pump to the right has the hose hanging sleekly down. The small
pump's hose is tangled up and has texture, wear and tear. "It has become an dynamic tangle with tremendous cracks and splits and ocher tubes inside" states Steve; this is more interesting to me. I want to tell stories about it: mysterious strong use and exposure to the elements? It is challenging to create a look like that which yet is authentic, giving the art piece a look of decay and use, wear and tear. Some one pointed out to Steve that his work was apocalyptic. I feel it is post apocalyptic because his work is renewal of what has been damaged, destroyed or

neglected. In his work Steve likes to elude to as many as possible reasons for why it looks as it does. The after effect in a piece can address all the imaginable causes.
The fetish pieces can refer to old windows with katsinam and cobwebs and insects. One day Steve wants to create his own glass vessels with extra bulges.... guarding the mysteries of it. I wanted to create something that is lasting and I want to protect them. Some work will not last: it will fall apart with the power supply, the red lights, water and snow and all that.
The magic of beauty is the immediacy of bringing together different elements.

Note the quality of the different lines, how they adhere to the paper or lay on the paper.
Steve works on his technique and it shows in the feeling emanating from the drawings.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Steve opened our conversation with: "I had a very clean living, my mother always had the house in order. The streets were covered with white shells and not with gravel, living near the ocean. I would sift through these shells and one day I found a small rusty piece of metal among them. I was fascinated and I took it with me and dropped it in my drawer. More and more pieces came and it became a box full of stuff, found objects, and the art evolved from that.

An artist has a vision about what he or she is doing. So Steve sculpts with steel and electronics and drawings. There are different sources of inspiration: man made, objects from nature

all of it mixed up in his mind. From natures it may be rock formations, twisted roots and his mind brings them together making new objects of them.

Things, yet what things? Steve is not content in re-expressing things as they are in the most common sense. It becomes a mixture of what we routinely see in our life. He clarifies: How that life affects me causes me to blend the emotional, spiritual and physical into a new construction. All that happens in my imagination. Sometimes I think of things ahead of time and then I sketch them out. It can be a rack of coils, yet stacked up it is more interesting.

Success, says Steve, is when I have created something that mystifies me and if the public is also mystified. What they see may have nothing to do with my intent. More and more I have made an effort to create my own material sometimes on the basis of found objects like old pieces of vacuum hose or electronics. What happens when I create a version of an object it feels like creating an artifact that never ever really existed. Yet there was a basic object I have seen. Creating these found objects is very satisfying.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

So full of
life even in the space around the plants and all that prickles our tender
buttons – Buttons pushed I listen to you tube about Stein - I have a hard time
reading her work but listening to people reading her and speaking about her work then
she gets to me, through to me. So the desert becomes my cultural landscape with
its loose arrangement of life and lifeless – both as good, as necessary,
open, dangerous, fractured in grandiose unity. Desert is a word, a word
pointing to sand rock plant and the size of land. Can the word paint or point, refer,
represent, not yet I know the names of all the rocks and all the tints of beige
rust brown... Stein get very close to representing through her words.

II

Desert Dry

Dry raging
floods have passed, disturbing, changing, sifting grains of sand. Desert is a
language I don’t fully know nor understand. I know not fully in my foolishness
cactus, cat claw, mesquite rosemary, Joshua tree, creosote, shifting sands,
rocks, dead branches supporting life, yet I have my garden weeded on the edge,
branching off of thoughts dead ends, barbed wire concentration camps. Tracks,
traces, tramping of feet, paws, always change changing and dangerous beauty not
reflecting in dry raging living. The separation of being alive in an alive
changing place – standing still alive in an alive changing place – wandering
thoughts among the standing still. Buttons pushed should be joyful – fearless,
light, befriending slipping shadow – in the desert- not through the desert,
over, next to --- just in the desert is a home –

III

Desert days

The long
days of friends, talk and walk relentless repetition of 23 years, two ears.
All town yard sale- bought a peace sign made by a city hippie, signaling,
signing my intent. In this small town no treasure hunt, no treasures to be
found but sharing, but loneliness on the dry air. Books, reading, absorbing
Modpo 2014, drinking it all thirstily, parched as I am. Where is the world – In
a book, in Tender Buttons – under desert blues and skies – No color but rock
and sand under cerulean skies, sands sifting lies –

IV

The desert

Dan knows
a bit about water, water pipes and repairing. He knows allabout the civil war – traces his
heritage back to decorated men and mostly unknown women – women giving birth
after seven months, burying husbands and children. He knows about black powder,
Harley’s, selling his to stay afloat - - - floating desert, mirages of
trembling sun of airy words which don’t want to settle, sink in, in the soul –
His loneliness pointing at drowning in dry sand.

V

Desert night

The dark
inhabitance of desert nights. Stars. The sun reflecting on the moon and the
dark inhabitance of timid thought spreading, spreading in dark drunken flow.
The secret plenitude of the loneliness of words when Stein's difference is
spreading in sound, accent, un-pointing to reference or meaning yet meaningful
– Desert my abstract painting, un-resembling. Words embracing a dry wash.

VI

Not resembling

The desert
is the desert, not resembling anything but itself. This is occupation. My
occupation, deranging, pitting word against object. The desert distance separates,
rearranges, reappearing strangely orderly, in its permanence of occupation. The
Dickinson desert gathering paradise... for occupation this, decidedly different
than Stein. Gertrude Stein gets an inspiration – This – This is – This is sand,
circling in the wind, wind circling sands. This is – this is morning – this is
evening – here is sand - where is the sandman.

So much
depends upon a dry wash

Flowing

Flooding

So I am
sand

The
difference disappearing

in a grain
of life –

VII

Influence

Influenced
by Dickinson and Stein after looking at the desert for 23 years, noticing its
rhythmic changing work of water and wind, of time passing into now again – The
desert always differentiating in its collapsing washes, the mysterious lake
after the monsoon in the repetitive rearrangement ofthe element of wood-herbs-sand-stone-plant-bone. The
desert, a home for now, changing me as I write about the flow rearranging
grains of sand.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Following my friends car when we were on the road to Saul, who took all the people and animals in and fed us all. We drive through Salinas Valley, rich soil, good crops, Mexican workers in the fields. The clouds dapple the mountains surrounding the this grand valley. Salinas, so I had to think of "Somewhere near Salinas, I let her slip away..." From me and Bobby Maggee. The song was performed at Tony's funeral and I remembered the other old songs the buskers in Antwerp played in the streets. Remember: Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz. My friend all got Porches, I must make amends.... Of course after the fertile Salinas valley came the desert with its know dangers and warning signs about rattlesnakes. The Joshua trees and creosote, the dry mountains. Everything unruly, yet in its place.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Today with my friends Irene and Cooper I saw the tallest and oldest
trees on earth. They showed me the redwoods where threes can be 2200
years old. We were in a 40-acre grove of ancient redwood trees. The lop
is a bit over one Km. The beauty of these trees is overwhelming their
power awe inspiring and soothing. they are gentle giants.

Their barks attracted me, their power gave me peace because when one of the giants topples over, several new ones will grow from the root system. Imposing and elegant, filtering the light in a most luminous way, inspiring people to protect the area so that it became the Henry Cowell redwood State Park. Here preservationist have done a great job. We saw deer, heard the whistle of the train on which in the past people come to have an elegant feast in this grove... May it be preserved, these living witnesses of centuries have a lot to tell us, through the 2200 two rings that tell their story and the story of the area.

On the left you see an extremely rare white albino Sequoia. It survives because it gets food from the normal root system...

So much beauty. We even saw a group of mule deer, walking over the sunlight dappled terrain... in total harmony with each other and the trees.

Monday, September 29, 2014

After a long hard day with three flights for which I had a boarding card were canceled which was only the beginning of a a quite chaotic situation: 2000 flights were canceled in Chacago O'hare because someone poured fuel on the computers in the control tower and then tried to stab himself to death. 60.000 people got stranded and finding a room when traveling with a pet is in normal times hard enough... Departing was done as 20 years ago with commands by the control tower, no fancy assistance by computers.Any way I was picked up the next day on San Francisco by Irene and she was so thoughtful that she took the coastal road, so I saw and heard the surf, enjoyed the light and the landscape and felt a lot better

What awaited me was a warm nest, a cozy home and beautiful coastal city. I could live there. ee I saw a seal, heard a sea lion and we walked the beach with all the dogs enjoying the outing. I am grateful that Doggy Dog traveled so well without barking or anything. This morning we went to see the 2.200 Years old redwood grove... But more of that later... I am grateful that all the passengers finally made it to their destination and I give thanks for good friends...

Saturday, September 13, 2014

A friend received from Klara, the classic radio station in Belgium, two VIP seats for Elektra, an opera by Richard Strauss, so I ended up in this bunch of opera going people, starting out with a glass of champaign and a divine chocolate mouse. I like to watch the filing in of people, to listen to the civilized hum of voices. The text, or libretto is based on a theatre text by Hofmannsthal. This seasons theme is 'Onmacht': Powerlessness... Max Reinhardt is the director of this chilling performance. The story: Klytämnestra, Elektra's mother together with her lover Aighistos killed her husband Agamemnon. Elektra is out for revenge, she becomes crazy, delusional, bitter, scheming and is taunting her mother. Chrysothemis is the other daughter who wants love and to have babies. She wants to escape the logic of revenge choosing for life. Orestes, the brother, is thought dead but he is alive and quite willing to perform the avenging act for Elektra, who by the way had dug up the ax used to kill her father so that in a kind of poetic justice his two murderers are killed by the same weapon. (I always loved Greek mythology, yet the murders, the incest among gods and royal families would sometimes be too much... ) Back to music and art: The role of Elektra is quiet a load, the grandiose Gertrud Eysoldt is always present on the stage. It is a heavy role in this one hour and forty-seven minutes opera. The role of the younger sister Chrysothemis was in excellent hands, a real nice performance, Orestes too was great. All the character parts were excellent as was the choir.

Yet most destabilizing was the decor by Patrick Bannwart and Maria
Wolgast. The queen had been offering every day animals to the gods to
give her peace and the scene where these animals fall into and on the
stage is gruesome. When the blood flows over the walls it is
disconcerting. What to me was the message of this opera is that by
shedding blood, only more blood is shed in the end. Rache, paying back,
avenging, wraak, an eye for an eye... it doesn't work. Stop violence...
Make love, not war...

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Walking through town, I started to notice how a small birch was pushing its way through the concrete... and kept growing. And soon enough there were cellars with an abundant life under their steel grid. Soon enough there were ferns where I saw no soil.

All kinds of small flowers and even very briefly a small white mushroom, all blackened to dust in a few days and then others springing up. Yes, it is autumn, yet this will to live, to survive in the urban landscape fascinated me.

These improbable compositions lend a special touch of beauty to the streets I walk. They draw my attention to the abstraction of lines, to the simpleness of color and the futility of pulling out the new tender buttons. They have decided to try and get through autumn unscathed or to return when pulled out or cut off. I prefer these streets where life imposes itself, the barren, clean lifelessness is to me uninteresting. Best are the dark alleys. Where nobody bothers the plants, where impermanence just lasts this bit longer.